Our 5 Projects On Deck for 2016

At this time last year, Chris was getting ready to have back surgery and that took us out of the reno game for the first 12 weeks of 2015. Faye was just 8 months old and we still set our project hopes high for 2015 and miraculously checked off nearly every one. Somehow. Maybe those 12 weeks of rest were good for all of us. ;) So here we are again, with our annual project predictions and we are setting our project goals high again this year. Even higher than last. We are feeling healthy, rested and ready to get a lot done, so without further ado, here are the projects you can probably look forward to seeing right here in 2016:

1. The Media Room/Playroom

Here are a few reminder photos of where we started when we moved in a couple years ago:

It's a very large room, almost as big as our great room (living room/dining room/kitchen) upstairs. There's a storage room behind the back wall that cuts it short just a bit. We really haven't done much since moving in besides making it a catch all for all things play:

But now we're ready to make it more usable and organized. The far side will be a playroom, which we've barely started while still kind of trying to make a few decisions:

The good news is we've made a lot of decisions here in the past week or so down here. I've ordered toy storage (yesterday!), we decided to keep the fireplace afterall. I picked out a couple sectional options. We're going to replace all the carpet. (oof!) We're 75% sure we're going with a huge tv instead of a projector because I started feeling a little sick thinking of our girls watching movies as teenagers with all the lights off down here. NOPE! The "media room" is originally why I was thinking a dark paint color would be better, but when I start thinking about playroom and a media room combined, I feel like light walls are the way to go--especially since it's a basement. I came across this photo on @studiomcgee's instagram (follow them. follow them now.) and it's serving as our main inspiration for the downstairs. 

I usually try to stay away from anything too trendy--do planked walls fit in to that category?--but I wouldn't mind just cutting and pasting this downstairs right now. There's so much to do, but we're diving in ASAP and hope to finish up by March-ish (that already sounds ambitious).

2. Kids' Bathroom

Staying on the lower level of our home, we are going to tackle the bathroom down there. It's primarily Greta's bathroom now (will also be Faye's when she moves down there) but also needs to serve overnight guests, as well as, anyone that's downstairs. Unfortunately, it needs pretty much gutted.

The main problem, that I touched on in our house tour video earlier this week, is there's no tub which is the most important thing in the girls' eyes at this point in time. They have been the sole users of the bath in our bathroom since we moved in (Chris and I are just not bath people). Not seen in the above photos is a second vanity behind the door. We'll tear all that out, put a tub/shower on the back wall and figure out new placement for the toilet and vanities. Still lots of planning to do here but we hope to start in the spring.

3. Master Bathroom

While we have to do the downstairs bathroom before the master bathroom (so we won't be without a tub), we have been dreaming of what we'll do in here for over a year.

The layout is terrible with a toilet closet right in the middle of the whole room. We plan to nix the tub entirely and put in a huge shower in its place and the toilet where the tiny shower is now. That will give us room for a his and her vanity and hopefully we can widen the doorway into the master closet (which you can see is through the bathroom), too.

4. Master Closet

We'll likely do this at the same time as the bathroom since they are pretty connected. It's not the biggest closet you've ever seen (I need to dig up a photo!), but it's a good size that just needs optimized. A place for things as simple as pants would be heavenly.

5. Back Patio

This would be a big bonus project this year. We are waiting to hear back about a gig to see if we will even have the budget or time for this project, but we have a vision for our backyard that we can't wait to implement. I took this picture when we first moved in and I'm recycling it since there is 2 ft of snow back there right now. Since, we've added a fence and greened up the grass a bit but the size remains the same, of course.

While our side yards are pretty big, this back space is on the smaller side. We plan to make one side yard (out the kitchen windows) a play area for the girls and the other side yard for gardening, which leaves this back space perfect for entertaining. We gone back and forth on decking or pavers but have decided to do pavers. We're also dreaming of a fireplace and pizza oven and pergola and lights and seating. Like I said, when we were mapping our plans for this year, this one is a big maybe but we're going to push for it and see what happens.

2016 is going to be a big, fun, full year for us and hope you'll tag along for the ride!